Magpie Ethel

Perfect Timing Stove

We have a stove at the beach house.  It is fine, although I planned on replacing it down the road.  It is vintage and white and it works.

The other day Tom and I were walking the prom in Seaside (a long sidewalk that runs parallel to the ocean for a mile and a half) and out of the corner of my eye I saw a couple of delivery guys wrestling a stove OUT of a house.  I only caught a glimpse of the stove before they disappeared around the back of the house...I saw vintage and turquoise.  I had to investigate. I had to sprint down a path through a wooded lot to catch the delivery guys at the rear of the house.  This is what I saw when I came around back.

It was gorgeous and looked brand new.  I asked the two delivery guys what was going to happen to the stove. They were going to scrap it.  Evidently they had removed it from the house as the house was a vacation rental and the stove did not meet code for that.   They had no idea if the stove worked or not.  Tom came around the back of the house and looked at the stove with me.   The guys said I could HAVE it if I wanted.  Tom asked if they could deliver it to our beach house (about 6 blocks away).  He handed them $20 and they were more than happy to do just that. They put it in our driveway.

We hauled it into our garage and on our next trip to the beach house we brought down a hand truck to haul it in the house and put it into place.  We plugged it in AND IT WORKED.  All but one burner (which I hope to replace).

When you open the oven it looks like it has never been used.

It does show some wear on the dials, but it is still pretty darn pretty.

The beach house is my happy place. The timing with this stove was meant to be. 
It is a happy stove in my happy house.

 

 

Paint is Magical....Painting the Beach House

We bought the beach house in May and the past few months have been a whirlwind of projects.  Lots of interior work, but also we had a new roof and gutters installed.  Our last big project before winter came was to get the exterior painted. 

This is the photo of the house a few moments before we got the keys.

I wanted a really fun bright color that when you pulled up to the house it just smiled at you.  I got just that. (landscaping is a next year project)

Tom and I spent five days painting.  Long days of painting.  I had never painted a house before.  I don't want to ever paint another one.  We rolled and brushed it.  We thought about spraying, but it is windy at the coast and the neighboring houses are close.  (with a color this bright you KNOW if there is overspray on a neighbor)  

The front porch is so welcoming now.  The front coral colored door just pops.   The color is called Coralina by Benjamin Moore.  The house color is called Everest.I got an old plastic seahorse and had Tom drill a hole in the back of it.  Perfect door accessory.

These plastic fish are vintage paper plate holders.  When I got them they were turquoise and I had them hanging in the same spot.  After painting the house almost an identical color to them, I spray painted them yellow so they pop.

I have two concrete lighthouses (one was FREE!) and hope to find one more big one to round out this little scene.

Both the front door and the side door were painted an eggplant color.  For the side door I used one of the extra paint sample quart colors we were choosing from for the house color. It is a similar color and I like the contrast...plus I used up some paint.  The metal feed trough will have daisies bloom again next spring.

The back of the house.

So fun to have a little patio spot and an outdoor shower.  It will be fun to work some more magic in the backyard next year.

Of course I had a couple vintage towel bars in my stash which promptly got hung after the paint dried. Hello outdoor shower.
Our garage is covered in weathered shingles...a super popular beach house look.  I LOVE, LOVE the shingles and wish that the house had the same. We would have shingled the house, but after the roof and gutters it made money sense to just paint.   Next year I may paint the door to the garage the same blue or maybe add some shutters in blue to tie it to the house a bit more.  Another project. 
I found this little shelf for $5.  It holds some of my many sand dollars perfectly.
Such an improvement with the paint.  Paint really is a transforming, magical thing!
It is my happy house.

 

 

 

Someday Beach House Update THREE, Family Room

We have had the beach house closing in on four months now.  Much progress, but still lots more to go.  The family room has come a long way and although, still a work in progress, it is turning into a really fun room. The room is long and narrow.  It was originally a garage and then converted to a family room. (There is still a garage in the backyard)  They put a slider in one end and a skylight so the light is decent and I am happy to have another room besides the living room to hang out in.  I painted the walls white, but kept the gray color on the one wall.

My swim cap collection FINALLY has a home. I have collected them for years.  I couldn't figure out how to display them and after googling a bit stumbled upon WIG stands. They come in colors, and I have mine displayed on pink and white stands. I love, love how this crazy collection came together. I bought that outdoor orange chair BEFORE we closed on the house hoping, hoping it would work out.  It is super fun in this room and I love the pop of color. The curtains were an estate sale find.  They were too short for the door, so I had my Mom sew a bit of fabric and trim to them and they work like a charm.  Thanks Mom!

I used an vintage beach towel from my collection to make a pillow case of sorts.  I put it on a red and white striped pillow and left some of the stripes peeking out. I like the repeat of the stripes on the outfit of the duck.

Looking back from the swim cap wall to the front of the family room.
I bought the couch at a vintage shop. It is 8 foot long and super comfortable. I like how it takes up the whole wall. One of these days I will find a cabinet that will sit across from it (a tv will go there too).  The lifeguard sign was a recent find at an antique shop.  It could not have been more perfect.
A few more swim caps in a netting poofy style and some old swim cap boxes.

My mannequin that I got at Farm Chicks is definitely a show stopper.  The ceilings have a funny drop, so she hung nicely tucked in against that.  One of my vintage swim towels hangs in the background. 

Another vintage swim towel was hung.  Silly wall decorations, but they work in a beach house!

I've always wanted a puzzle table at the beach house.  A table where you have a puzzle constantly in progress and you walk by and pop a couple of pieces in.  We also replaced the light fixture with this clear glass globe one...it reminds me of a Japanese fishing float. The pink cabinet in the background holds puzzles and games. It was on the wall of the garage at the beach house. We pried it off and added vintage casters to the bottom. It fit just perfectly under the yellow glass cabinet/shelf that I had hanging on the wall already.  

I love having a spot to display some of my vintage puzzles. They have the best themes and illustrations on the boxes.

I painted this side door. I wanted a color that would pop, and I got that when I painted it a color called Clementine.  The sand bucket display worked like a charm. There was this odd little corner area coming down from the kitchen. I had a bunch of corner shelves and they fit there perfectly and ended up being a super charming display for my vintage sand bucket collection.  Old shovels round out that corner.  I will replace the linoleum floor down the road.

Old sea glass and a funny little vintage fish shaped squirt gun.
A fun old store display that I purchased from Shara of Monkeybox fame. Gotta love those swim caps!

This wall by the sliding glass door has the electrical panel on it.  I have a collection of old seascapes that hang there nicely. One of them hides the electrical panel.

I hung them with old binder clips.

I'm so happy with how it is all coming together. If you follow me on Instagram you may have seen the fun yellow floor lamp I bought the other day for the family room. I will bring it down on our next trip there.  Such fun!  We also got a new roof and gutters. Next up is to paint the exterior. Landscaping will probably happen next year.  Winter is coming.I'm sure happy that someday beach house became real! SO HAPPY!

 

Someday Beach House Update TWO

This beach house is a constant change right now, and will be for quite awhile.  So many projects and so much happy going into them. I am so enjoying hunting the right vintage item for the house to make it my own.  This is the dining room right now (above).  I added pink shutters that I had in my stash (with vintage Humpty Dumpty knobs)...they are non functional shutters...I just like the pop of pink color. I also added a old hose holder (found at Farm Chicks) that holds my vintage lei collection. I've also found a few Oregon coast souvenir plates that got displayed.  Here is a photo before those projects.  

I had some old bowling team names that I chained together and hung in the dining room. I just like the silliness of what each team was called.I found a big LAZY sign at Farm Chicks.  Lazy is anything but me, but it reminds me that the beach house is a spot I can be lazy. I've also painted every single wall in the house. I kept a gray wall in the living room and one in the family room but am painting everything white.  That is completely different than my house at home where every room is a color.  I really like the freshness of the white here and it does not seem sterile since I am using so much color with my vintage finds.  

I got my couch for the living room finally.  I fit it in MY CAR!  It is super comfy and I really like the color.  I made the pillow on the left from vintage barkcloth that an IG friend, Wrensmart sent to me.  The round pillow and the floral pillow are both from Farm Chicks.

  We did not move into the bedrooms right away at the beach house.  We set up a makeshift bedroom in the family room while we tackled removing carpet and hoping the hardwood floors would work that we believed were under the carpet.  We removed carpet from the hall and two bedrooms. The master bedroom had indoor outdoor carpet glued to the floor under the foam pad and carpet. Three layers!  Luckily the glue was water soluble, so with a glue solvent and a bunch of scraping we were able to get the floor clean and the hardwoods were not in bad shape. I don't need the floors 100% amazing at the beach house.  There were a few discolorations, but after a coat of polish (we used Rejuvenate) I was fine with the master and hall floor.  This is the floor midway through getting the glue up.
We got the master bedroom loaded in finally! It is still a work in progress, but nice to be out of the family room. I haven't figured out what to do for a headboard, and the white space was driving me crazy. These big vintage honeycomb flowers are my solution for now.


My collection of ceramic whales and dolphins found a home on this perfect shelf.

I had a roll of vintage wallpaper that was fish themed that I was determined to find a spot for. I only had a certain amount to work with.

I ended up using it at the end of the hall and painted a strip of color on either side to make it work. I like the pop of color and I LOVE the wallpaper and I ended up with about 3 inches of extra paper.  Phew.

I am doing a gallery wall of funny vintage beach and fish themed items. Quirky.  So far I have a vintage record cover, a book cover, a puzzle and a page from an origami book.  I am having a ton of fun hunting stuff down.  I think down the road both sides of this wall will be a gallery of vintage beach fun.

I also put my old swim cap display shelf to good use.  
In the other main floor bedroom we were not as lucky with the hardwoods. They had glued foam carpet pad to the floor under the carpet. We tried a gazillion things trying to get the glue and foam up.  I did not want to have the floor in this one room professionally refinished...this is a beach house after all and I am trying to stretch the budget.  In the end we sanded the floor down and painted over the hardwoods. The glue would not come up and it won.  I love the look of a painted floor and it just looks beachy.  It was the perfect solution in that room. I went with a super pale blue for the floor.  The two doors came from my sister in laws grandparents house that was going to be demolished.  The doors were from a closet and I loved the color.  They were a cheap and easy headboard and pop of color. I found the bedspread in estate sale land...groovy huh?

This light fixture was from a garage sale.  I sold an orange one similar to it at my garage sale.  Less than 24 hours later I found this one in white and a smaller version of the one I sold. I really, really like it in this room. It was meant to be.

We have had the beach house just over two months now and so much progress has been made. It really is the silliest, happiest house to decorate.  I smile the minute I walk in the door.

That is the update for now.  I've got the family room almost painted and the swim mannequin hung..but thats another post!  Stay tuned.

 

 

Someday Beach House Update ONE, Living And Dining Room Plus The Swim Caps

If you missed the post where I announced that we bought a beach house it is here.  We have had the beach house just over three weeks and we have been BUSY.  The beach house is about an hour and a half drive, so I have either gone down for the day or have spent the night at least once a week since we got it.  Tom and I have been busy.  Amy (Into Vintage) came down with me overnight and sewed her little heart out.  Progress has been made, but there is a long way to go.  I will update periodically. 

3 weeks in.  Here is an update.

The living room and dining room are coming together.  

Those two rooms are the rooms you see when you walk in the front door, so it is nice to have those to welcome me when I go back and forth.  Most of the vintage goodies that I have in the living room are those that I had tucked away for my #somedaybeachhouse.  I got the rug the other day and it fits perfectly (at overstock.com).  The chairs are a work in progress.  I got them from my Auntie Kathy who passed away last year.  Amy is making me new chair cushions for them.  I have been collecting vintage bark cloth for this project and Amy is rocking them with her amazing sewing.  She sewed 30 yards of piping for this project.  I owe her big time.

I had this pink table waiting in my garage for my #somedaybeachhouse. The lamp shade was also waiting and found at an estate sale a couple of years ago.  Most of the shells came from my Auntie Kathy.

Note the vintage fish themed waste paper baskets.

I have had this printer's tray stashed away the entire time we have lived in this house, unused.  (19 years)  It will be fun to fill with beach treasures.

I got this vintage shower door the other day from the estate of my sister in laws grandparents.  It was free and features fish and seaweed.  It is really hard to photograph into the window.  I had no idea what I was going to do when I got it.  I decided to use it as a window privacy screen in our living room window.  Tom and I hung it on our last visit and I could not be happier. Here is it looking in from the driveway.  (The house will be painted a fun color this summer)

My aquarium cabinet just makes me happy. I bought the cabinet from a girlfriend and painted the inside blue. I wanted it to look like an aquarium. I added my collection of ceramic fish and some shells and coral that were my Auntie Kathy's. My aunt passed away last year and had lived overseas in the Marshall Islands. She had collected and crafted with shells and had some wonderful things.

I found the inflatable sea horse Sandy, last year at Farm Chicks.  How perfect is it here at the beach house?

I got this display cabinet a couple of months ago at a local antique mall. It was locked when I bought it and Tom ended up taking the back off and removing the lock to open it.  It will display the oddball vintage sea themed treasures.  My favorite so far is the inflatable sea gulls that I found at a local estate sale. They are in the original packaging.

I have never had a spot for my $5 estate sale lamp at my house.  I covered a new shade with some vintage fabric from my stash and it will shine brightly at the beach.  The end table it is sitting on will probably get a coat of paint.  It was a free at the curb table (along with a matching coffee table).

I really love the bleached wood wall in the living room. It is a focal point and I have made the most of it.  The built in bookcases on the side are a bonus.  This pink piece was a twin headboard.  I got it after we bought the house hoping it would work on this wall. It did.  I like how the S design looks like waves.  The paper mache anchor I have had FOREVER and I found it in estate sale land.
This wall is just the perfect place for all the vintage beach eye candy that I have collected.

The dining room and the living room are one big room.  I painted the dining room white.  The table and chairs I found in Seattle after I saw them on an Instagram account (Rusticmint...thanks Jeanette).  We will be installing a new light fixture once I find one I like.

This cabinet I found locally and I love the unusual lines.  It has a floral decal on each of the sliding doors.  I have never seen another like it.
The crazy big coral pieces are from my Auntie Kathy.  It was fun to finally get my seahorses out of the bin they have been stored in.

There is still lots of tweaking in these two rooms.  I'm off to a good start though and the rooms make me happy.  Speaking of happy, I FINALLY got my swim caps displayed.  They are living in the family room.  That room still has a ways to go, but Tom and I hung the shelves for them on our last visit and I got them displayed. (We are sleeping in this room too until we get the carpet out of our bedroom, so that is my bed in the foreground of the photo)

It really is fun to see the house come together.  So many ideas going around in my head and so many treasures to display.  We are working on pulling up the carpet in the bedrooms and hall.  That is a chore in itself since the foam pad was GLUED to the floor in one room. In the other room INDOOR OUTDOOR CARPET was GLUED to the floor.  Progress is being made though.  I'll update periodically.  Fun to share!

Happy Day!  

p.s. the swim caps are displayed on new wig stands that I found at a local wig shop.  Aren't they cool?  I love that they came in pink and white!








 

Someday Beach House

My long time blog readers have heard time and time again over the years how much I want a beach house.  Every since I got married Tom and I have spent at least a week in Seaside, Oregon each summer.  The town holds many memories for me and fun times with Ben and Kate.  Lots of memories watching them grow up and just happy family times.  I have been getting email alerts for a bit when a house would come on the market.  Seaside isn't a large town (6,500) and I wanted to live in a certain area of the town, so houses were few and far between.  Those that were in my price range were either too small or needed lots of work.  I finally got an email update about a house that was within my budget and had much of what I was looking for.  My mom and I went to look at it initially and then Tom and I made a second trip.  We made an offer and it was accepted. We got the keys last week.

Here I am in one of my swim caps from my collection standing in front of it.  If you follow me on Instagram you know I have used the hashtag #somedaybeachhouse quite a bit.  This summer we will get a new roof and paint the exterior a fun color.  I am hoping for a coral colored front door. (also hoping for a Dutch door)

It is a solid house.  1900 square feet with 2 bedrooms, 2 bath on the main floor and 2 more quirky bedrooms upstairs.  It has a family and living room.  There are plenty of projects.  Lots of painting and tearing up carpet, but I like to do that stuff.  It will be fun to put my Magpie Ethel twist on the house and make it my own.  I have tons of vintage beach stuff stored up to decorate.  If you follow me on Instagram you have seen the start of the transformation.  It is four blocks from the ocean, so after a long day of projects we can take a break with a stroll on the sand.

These photos are all BEFORE PHOTOS.  This is the way the house looked when I first saw it.  THIS IS NOT MY STUFF.  I love this wood wall.   I think I will keep the grayish blue wall paint color for now.  There are hardwoods in the living and dining room. We are hoping hardwoods are under the carpet in the two main floor bedrooms and hall as well. Cross your fingers.

The living and dining rooms open up to one another and the kitchen is to the right of the dining room. There are tons of windows and this is a pretty bright room.

Lots of counter space and storage in the kitchen.
The garage was converted to a family room.  There is still an unattached garage in the back that is huge. That back wall will display my swim cap collection...which numbers 43!

A good size master bedroom.

The two upstairs bedrooms are quirkier attic bedrooms with lower head room.  They are still two extra bedrooms.  I am going to put 4 twin beds in this room like a dorm room. The house will be able to sleep 12 once I get everything squared away.  (and perhaps some grandkids wayyyyy down the road).I love the back garage.  There is an outdoor shower as well.

I am giddy with finally owning a beach house.  It will be a ton of projects, but I am excited to have a new spot to decorate and play with. I also just love the ocean and the beach. We have taken 3 carloads and a U-haul truck load over so far.   I bought some furniture for the house once we made the offer.  My parents are also downsizing to a retirement home so I was able to shop their house for things that I needed. The timing worked out really well with that.

I have soooo many things tucked away.  This house is going to be crazy fun.  Here are a few things I have done in the week we have had the house.

My whale collection has come out of boxes.

I bought a cabinet from a girlfriend and painted the inside blue.  I wanted it to look like an aquarium.  I added my collection of ceramic fish and some shells and coral that were my Auntie Kathy's.  My aunt passed away last year and had lived overseas in the Marshall Islands. She had collected and crafted with shells and had some wonderful things.

Last but not least a peek at the living room.  I still have much to do.  A new rug and couch.  Cover the orange chairs (thank you Amy).  I still need to unpack boxes lurking in the background. This is the start.  I think it is fun to see it in the beginning.

So off I go on this beach house adventure.  I will share as I get rooms finished and we make progress.  I am just happy.  Happy to finally have my someday beach house.